The present study examines organized labor's role in American political and economic life during the Nixon years. In the 1960s, most observers regarded American workers as economically secure and content. Events at the close of the decade, however, undermined the image of the affluent worker. Workers' support for conservative candidates George Wallace and Richard Nixon during the 1968 presidential campaign convinced many observers that blue-collar Americans had swung to the right. In the election's aftermath, analysts of various political persuasions tried to explain “the blue-collar blues.” According to the mainstream press, white workers had become more concerned with social issues—ghetto rioting, campus unrest, widespread anti-war protest, the breakdown of law and order—than about “traditional” economic issues. Richard Nixon hoped to capitalize on the Social Issue to woo white workers and fashion a new Republican majority. But the relationship between the Nixon Administration, a traditionally Democratic labor leadership, a radicalized student movement, and a volatile rank and file proved to be highly complex. Large-scale strikes against the General Electric and General Motors corporations in 1969 and 1970 showed that workers still considered economic issues to be of paramount concern. Workers and their unions did not uniformly support U.S. policy in Vietnam; indeed, during the Nixon years, unionists became more outspoken in their opposition to the war. Some unions even attempted a rapprochement with segments of the New Left. Organized labor denounced Nixon's attempts to combat the inflationary spiral the Vietnam War had triggered. Nixon nevertheless won substantial blue-collar support during his 1972 reelection campaign. He did so not by playing the social issues but by neutralizing the Vietnam War and economic concerns. Nixon's victory proved to be short lived, however. The economic recession of 1973 took its toll on the workers and their unions. The energy crisis launched a devastating round of de-industrialization. By 1974, Nixon's blue-collar support had collapsed. For all their discontent, white workers had not become members of the new Republican majority. They were displeased with their position in American society, however, and their votes were available for courting.

This dissertation explores the political and organizational activities of the Tanzania Teacher Union (TTU). This study attempts to find an organizational model for teacher unions in Africa that will increase their ability to influence policies, taking the example of the Tanzanian Teacher Union. The study is based on data collected from an open ended questionnaire survey, documentation, the union, relevant literature, focus group interactions developed by the participants on their own, and from correspondence with union leaders. The data obtained have been subjected to a combination of document and content analyses. Results were triangulated by using a variety of sources including mass media, correspondence, union reports, minutes of various meetings, and articles written before the formation of the union. The union was analyzed using the theoretical model of Ofori-Dankwa (1993) that characterizes trade unions using two dimensions political and economic which define four paradigms for unions. From the data collected, the researcher concluded that the TTU belongs to the Low Political, Low Economic paradigm. Analysis of the goals of the union however, suggests that it would be more effective in achieving its goals if it moved toward the High Political, High Economic paradigm. The data revealed that the union has trouble addressing a variety of problems including salary/pension delays that make it difficult for members to pay their medical bills and devoting sufficient attention to the problem of HIV/AIDS among teachers. The data also indicated that there are no mechanisms to develop programs for institutionalizing in-service training for members. In addition, the union movement becomes the recipient of donor funding and unknowingly spends its own resources to support the donor driven projects. The union also lacks a mechanism for negotiating with the employer. There is resistance from the private employers and the government to provide such a legal system. Finally, an area for further research is to investigate linkages of unions with the educational systems and other agencies interested in basic education. These linkages are what make unions sustainable while bringing to focus the coordination of organizational activities. The union faces a choice: either to organize itself appropriately or die.

This qualitative case study examined the issues and concerns with preparing visually impaired people (VIP) for mainstream employment and their perceptions of the impacts of information and communication technology (ICT) accessibility on their personal and professional lives. The study focused on the experience of one Philippine-based non-governmental organization and their efforts to provide skills development and employment preparation support to VIP. Study findings discuss the organization's training program features, barriers to, enabling factors for, skills needed for employment, and the impacts of ICT accessibility. The transformation theory of adult learning provided the conceptual framework for the study and was used as the primary tool for analysis of findings. Conclusions highlight that while impacts have been positive over all, there is a need to increase VIP access to ICT across the socio-economic spectrum worldwide. Barriers to VIP employment need to be addressed, particularly related to employer attitudes towards hiring VIP. Concluding remarks additionally address implications for policy, practice and research.

Due to a worldwide increase in migration, refugees, and migrant laborers, interpersonal conflicts today are more frequent and complex. The young field of interpersonal conflict resolution is therefore being looked to for answers. Practitioners all over the globe are limited by the conflict resolution literature which is mostly written from a western perspective. There is a need to explore interpersonal conflict resolution practices of different cultural groups and societies with different histories of oppression. In a 15-month qualitative research study, I explored interpersonal conflict resolution practices of a Tamil labor community on a tea plantation in Sri Lanka called Sooryan. The first part of the study traces the establishment of plantations in Sri Lanka by the British. It differentiates between plantation and non-plantation societies. The works of Jayaraman (1975), Beckford (1983), Wesumperuma (1986), Daniel (1993), and Hollup (1994) help trace the cultural, economic, and political factors which cause conflicts on plantations. This part also explores interpersonal conflict resolution practices in different societies, and presents four third-party conflict resolution models practiced in non-plantation societies. The second part describes the labor community at Sooryan plantation. It explains the living and working conditions of the laborers, and the role of Talaivars (leaders) and trade union representatives. It examines discrimination faced by the laborers from the outside non-plantation community. It highlights the machine bureaucracy and the management style at Sooryan. The third part explores four categories of interpersonal conflicts, which manifest within-family, between laborers, between laborers and their supervisors, and between the labor plantation community and the outside non-plantation community. It describes processes which the labor community uses in resolving their conflicts. Challenges are posed to practitioners and educators by contrasting the conflict resolution practices of the Sooryan labor community with the mainstream mediation model of the United States. Finally, the study examines the unique problems of the labor community and how its social, economic, and political isolation makes its conflicts permanent. With this understanding, further research and effective educational programs can be developed for plantation societies, migrant laborers, and refugees. To this end, the daily water problems of the Sooryan labor community in Sri Lanka serve as a timely reminder.

This dissertation investigates the role of company executives‘ racial ideology in the relegation of black workers to inferior, lower paying jobs in the Pullman Railroad Company (1858-1969). I argue that it is important to recognize that employers, like white workers, were not driven simply by material interest; rather their actions were often guided by their ideologies and deep seated beliefs and prejudices. My argument that employers‘ racial ideology was a causal factor in black workers‘ marginalization is developed through a historical analysis of the Pullman Railroad Company archives.

abstract: This dissertation examines the embodied experiences of domestic workers and their children as they emerged in organizing campaigns aimed at achieving a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights in California. I analyze the ways domestic worker organizers have historically conceptualized their movements around demands for dignified labor and immigration reform. I argue that their demands for protections and rights force them into a contradictory space that perpetuates vulnerability and recasts illegality—a space where domestic workers’ bodies get continuously figured as exploited and in pain in order to validate demands for rights. I trace this pattern in organizational survey material across generations, where worker’s voices resisted prefigured mappings of their bodies in pain, and where they laid out their own demands for a movement that challenged normative frameworks of fair labor and United States citizenship that continue to center race and gender in the transnational mobility of migrant women from Mexico and Central America. Furthermore, I explore the embodied experiences of domestic workers’ children, and the embedded power relations uncovered in their memories as they narrate their childhood accompanying their mothers to work. Their memories provided an affective landscape of memory where the repetitive, and demeaning aspects of domestic work are pried apart from western, colonial arrangements of power. I argue that their collective embodied knowledge marks a reframing of pain where transfiguration is possible and transformative patterns of becoming are prioritized. I propose interpreting these collective, embodied memories as a constellation of shimmers—luminous points that align to expose the relationships between workers, their children, employers, and their families, and the specific context in which they were produced. Altogether, they create what I call a brown luminosity—forces activated by their mothers’ labor that created multiple worlds of possibilities for their children, resulting in nomadic memories which move beyond victimizing their mother’s bodies to enable an ever-changing perspective of the ways their labor has radically transformed homes, livelihoods, and transnational spaces. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Justice Studies 2019

The topic of this dissertation is the fact-finding stage of Oregon's public sector impasse resolution procedure. The use of fact-finding has dramatically increased because of the recent and rapid growth in public sector collective bargaining, and the resulting increase in public sector strikes. Beginning in 1962 with John F. Kennedy's Executive Order 10988, a series of federal and state laws were passed granting and expanding collective bargaining rights to public employees. Many of the state laws resemble the private sector model provided under the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (Taft-Hartley); however, the use of the strike as a weapon to enforce bargaining in good faith and resolution of conflict has been limited for public employees because of the potential threat of disruption of public services and interference with the sovereignty of the government. Such anti-strike legislation, however, has not prevented public employee strikes. The purpose of this study is to analyze the purpose, nature, and effectiveness of Oregon's fact-finding phase of impasse resolution. Because of the impact the home rule issue has had on the use of Oregon's impasse procedures, this study will focus on those sectors where use of fact-finding has been extensive, consistent and unaffected by the home rule issue. This analysis of fact-finding represents the first comprehensive and systematic assessment of the impasse procedure to be undertaken in the state since the 1973 law was passed. Such analysis will identify the significant variables in the efficacy of fact-finding and will bring together practitioners' views on the viability of the process. This latter dimension is critical in that the opinions of these participants in the labor relations field will likely affect and shape future legislation on fact-finding.

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This dissertation develops theoretical and econometric models of investment and labor demand in South Africa in order to shed light on the decline in the rate of fixed investment beginning in the mid 1970s, the nature of business compliance with racebased labor market policies, and the emergence of “jobless growth” in a period of heightened political and social conflict. I develop a model of investment and choice of factor intensity that incorporates roles for both bargained wages and political unrest. Building from this theoretical base, the dissertation investigates the hypothesis that social conflict depresses investment. An index of political unrest in South Africa is created using data on strike activity, prison populations, and detentions under the apartheid security laws. Estimates using a panel data set show significant effects on investment of the after-tax rate of profits, an accelerator term, and the index of political unrest. Increases in political instability explain the largest portion of the decline in the rate of investment in South Africa over this period. The following chapter explores whether political unrest contributes to non-wage “hassle costs” of employing labor that can lead, in a labor surplus/capital-poor economy, to higher levels of capital-intensity. Econometric estimates show significant negative effects of higher average product wages and greater political unrest on the labor-capital ratio. The fifth chapter creates a model of business compliance with apartheid labor market policies—in particular, job reservations and controls over urban influx. Apartheid labor market policies are modeled as a multiple-player prisoner's dilemma in which the incentive to defect on the part of individual firms (by employing more low-wage black workers than apartheid policies allowed) threatens the collective benefits of the racist policies in providing a disciplined labor force at low cost. Renewable contractual relationships and conformist behavior provide the incentives to comply with the apartheid regulations. The model's predictions—that the level of non-compliance climbs as the ability of the state to police the cartel and maintain incentives falls—are shown to be reflected in the historical record.